Grand Telephone Company, Inc. (Grand) is an
independent local exchange company that provides local telephone
service for the Jay, OK and Disney, OK exchanges. Grand’s service
area is south of Grand Lake in Northeast Oklahoma in Delaware and
Mayes counties. Grand has been in business as an Oklahoma
corporation since 1956. Grand has two subsidiaries: OMNI III Cable
T.V., Inc. (OMNI) and GTC, Inc. (GTC). OMNI provides cable T.V. for
the towns of Jay, OK and Disney, OK, and has its Grand Lake
Telecommunications division that provides DSL broadband Internet
access through fiber network to both exchanges. GTC is a long
distance provider that serves approximately 40% of Grand’s local
access customers. Grand currently has 18 employees.

Grand has been very proactive in updating and upgrading its buried
plant and with the influx of ice storms and tornados over the last
few years, is in the process of converting any remaining aerial
plant to buried plant. This will ensure a reliable network in even
the most extreme weather. Grand has fiber plant to the node and is
planning to extend fiber to the home within the city limits of Jay
and Disney, in the future to meet the demand for higher broadband
speeds. Grand recently invested in a new soft switch that will
enable lower cost maintenance as well as a more robust switch to
offer more possibilities to the customer. As a small company in a
high-cost area, Grand offers reliable telephone service and
broadband capability to 100% of the Jay, OK and Disney, OK exchanges
that are served in Delaware and Mayes counties. These exchanges
cover a 205 square mile area with 14 subscribers per square mile. As
technology advances, the desire is to offer these new technologies
to the rural customers served, and part of that service is
maintaining and improving the connectivity to customers living in
high-cost areas. The network that has been implemented not only
provides quality telephone and broadband service to rural customers,
but also provides the fiber backbone to cellular towers, which the
wireless carriers use in the area.

Grand has responsibilities to its customers that create a culture of
equality among all residents. No matter where a potential customer
may live in the exchange, no matter how big or small their house,
and no matter how high or low their income level, all residents have
the right to request service and receive the same high level of
service that the counterpart to their circumstances will receive.
Grand regularly has requests for service 3-5 miles out from their
closest point of current service, and fulfills those requests at no
extra cost to the customer. Most of the time, these are rural
customers out of the range of any wireless carrier’s signal. Both
the Jay and Disney exchanges have a high population in the low
income category. Thus, the Lifeline program for low cost telephone
service is very beneficial to Grand’s service area. Approximately
15-20% of residential customers benefit from the low-income Lifeline
program currently.